SWTOR - processor dependant?

In short , I did upgrade GPU from nvidia 9600GT to ATI 6870, but im still not satisfied with swtor performance.
As former wow player, i know that wow was more CPU dependant due to simple (outdated) game graphic engine, but i dont know about TOR.

Atm, i got core2duo 2.4ghz socket 775 (cant overclock it due to mobo bugging), so would it help buying second-hand 3.16ghz core2duo for 70euro?
And is it a problem if i got 800mhz ddr2 memory sticks and that 3.16ghz cpu with 1333mhz fsb?

Or just go for new solution like new i3 or i5 and new mobo and new memory for about 300euro?

It's your CPU dude, anything less than 2.5ghz is pushing it for settings in the medium to high range. If you can't O.C then you really need to look into scaling back the settings. On of my systems is a Athlon O.C to 2.5ghz and although it was playable you see stuttering and the fps spikes.

You would get more life out of a Upgraded MB/CPU/Ram combo since you already have a decent GPU but can you fit it in the budget? 300 euros sounds like a tight fit unless you use a crappy H61 board -.-

There are performance advantages (in terms of FPS spikes) to having a quad-core system above 3ghz, but beyond that, the CPU dependency is limited. The issue for most performance is actually hard drive speed. Two of the caches used by the game are on your hard drive, so there is a significant FPS "smoothness" advantage to having a fast SSD on a modern SATA controller over an older system with a traditional HDD on an older SATA controller.

The reason the players on the high-end i7 systems are having better FPS isn't their i7 sandy bridge OC'd water-cooled blah blah blah... it's the fact that those players also are running on the newest generation of SSDs and have high-end mobos with quality sata controllers.

There are performance advantages (in terms of FPS spikes) to having a quad-core system above 3ghz, but beyond that, the CPU dependency is limited. The issue for most performance is actually hard drive speed. Two of the caches used by the game are on your hard drive, so there is a significant FPS "smoothness" advantage to having a fast SSD on a modern SATA controller over an older system with a traditional HDD on an older SATA controller.

The reason the players on the high-end i7 systems are having better FPS isn't their i7 sandy bridge OC'd water-cooled blah blah blah... it's the fact that those players also are running on the newest generation of SSDs and have high-end mobos with quality sata controllers.

I knew I felt a performance increase when I installed this SSD. Always brushed it off to a placebo effect.

Or just go for new solution like new i3 or i5 and new mobo and new memory for about 300euro?

Thnx

It would be worthwhile for you to go with an i5, I wouldn't waste your money on a C2D as a slight clockspeed gain will not give you a significant performance difference in SWTOR. The performance difference between a C2D and a sandy bridge i5 is huge, because SWTOR does make use of a quad-core processor, you'll see a huge smoothness and responsiveness difference in warzones.

It is, of course, normal for the processor to run hotter under general circumstances, and I won't overlook the fact that my GTX580 is MSI Twin Frozr and therefore has brilliant cooling. However to this day no other game I've touched has driven my CPU fan up to full RPM.

I got a Core2 2.5 Ghz CPU myself and plan to eventually upgrade to an i7. From what I caught from someone in general chat in the game some weeks ago, enable your FPS in SWTOR (ctrl+shift+F if I recall). If the numbers are:
Green - your CPU needs to be upgraded
Red - your graphics card needs to be upgraded
Yellow - you're fine
Rather odd that green isn't the okay color, but whatever. I run green myself, and I knew my CPU was my bottleneck for my system even before I enabled FPS. Can't really upgrade it any further without buying a new motherboard. No point in me upgrading my graphics card if my CPU is the issue. Got the Radeon HD 3870 video card which I really want to upgrade, too.

With everything on high (shadows off or on low since they're jagged and pixelated anyway), I run 20-35 FPS depending on the area. I can run some areas with everything on high, but the shadows just bug me, even with anti-aliasing. Exception appears to be Taris and Balmorra where my FPS drops to like 2 unless I run low settings on everything. Then I run 30-40 FPS.

It's actually better, if you're going to upgrade your CPU anyway, to get an i5 CPU or better. The Core2s, at least in the USA, aren't really worth it anymore with the i5s and i7s out. The Core2 processor is the minimum requirement for the game so just upgrading to a faster Core2 won't really help you much and won't last you very long. I tend to think long term with my upgrades. What will last me 3-5 years? I prefer to upgrade every 3-5 years and avoid upgrading yearly if I can help it. Gets too costly to upgrade constantly.

GPU-bound: The GPU's job in relation to framerate is to render the display as a frame many times per second. A GPU-bound framerate happens when the video card cannot render frames fast enough to keep up with real-time.

CPU-bound: The CPU's job in relation to framerate is to take the rendered frames from the GPU, then sort and send them to the monitor back through the video card's vga/dvi/hdmi adapter.

There's a way to tell if your framerate is currently CPU or GPU bound in SWTOR:

Press ctrl-shift-f to bring up your framerate. If the number is green that means that your current framerate is GPU-bound. If the number is red that means that you are currently CPU-bound.

Ideally, a good card with a slow CPU will mean a red number. A bad card with a fast CPU will mean a green number. Good card and fast CPU will probably be green. Bad card and slow CPU will probably frequently be both.

I think SWTOR has some memory issues, apparently quite a few people have difficulty getting it to function without removing a stick or RAM. I am able to run the game, and while it is running performance is fine, however it is not stable since I get random crashes and occasional blue screens.

Most people would rather die than think, and most people do. -Bertrand RussellIdeas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns. Why should we let them have ideas? -Joseph Stalin

In short , I did upgrade GPU from nvidia 9600GT to ATI 6870, but im still not satisfied with swtor performance.
As former wow player, i know that wow was more CPU dependant due to simple (outdated) game graphic engine, but i dont know about TOR.

Atm, i got core2duo 2.4ghz socket 775 (cant overclock it due to mobo bugging), so would it help buying second-hand 3.16ghz core2duo for 70euro?
And is it a problem if i got 800mhz ddr2 memory sticks and that 3.16ghz cpu with 1333mhz fsb?

Or just go for new solution like new i3 or i5 and new mobo and new memory for about 300euro?

Thnx

Your best bet is the new i3 or i5 system. Here is a couple of configurations for ya.

OP here.
Saw few contradicting things here about color of my fps counter - my counter is green and since i have slow cpu, it would mean green is when you have bad cpu, not gpu. Also going for i7 is really overkill for me, even i5+mobo+ram would be over 400euro and i was never buying such expensive stuff. So, choice is faster 2nd hand core2duo or i3. Oh, i forgot to say i already have SSD (good one with sandforce controller). dont know what to do atm, maybe just get 600mhz faster C2Duo, just to see how its doing, 50 euro isnt much for experiment. If only this stupid mobo of mine isnt stuborn, it just wont let me overclock (when i set higher FSB is BIOS, when i boot windows its still original FSB there and therefore original freq, instead of increased).
Thanks for advices